


Colorvision

by gerty_3000



Category: Hotline Miami (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 09:10:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10487301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gerty_3000/pseuds/gerty_3000
Summary: Something about Richard is just attractive in a way that he can't put into words.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _@hurtspeople asked:_ rouven's first impression of richard? what made him try to talk to him?

Heat. Shiny, sweltering heat. It seemed like that was all Rouven knew as he sat inside the tent, somehow hotter under the canvas than outside, but at least it was shaded. Rouven had his head down, arms wrapped underneath his forehead as a makeshift pillow. The air was thick, wet, it made his head swim and feel drunk and he had nothing better to do.

At the sound of the canvas door rustling, however, Rouven was on his feet in an instant, shoulders squared and chin up, a prideful stance that had been beaten into him. Thankfully, his assumption that it was the Colonel walking in was correct (as it would have been kind of silly to stand at attention to one of his peers than his superior). And, with him, was another man, one the Lieutenant couldn’t recognize. Tall, blond hair, and perhaps the emptiest expression that he had ever seen before. Sullen and blank, eyes hollow, lips drawn in an impassive frown. When the Colonel introduced him as Richard Giles, a fellow soldier that would be serving under him, his hand thrust out stiffly to be shaken.

The grip was strong, the up-and-down motion swift and curt before he withdrew with a certain kind of disgust that he surely thought was well-hidden, as if he had gone so long pretending to enjoy contact that he didn’t have it in him anymore to put up a front, unable to hide his revolt for skin-against-skin any longer, but still had to hide it in some way.

Rouven could respect that. He got fed up a lot too, but never had the gall to show it till he was at the absolute breaking point. He just offered a genuine smile and marked it away for later, no touching.

-

For the first four months, he never said a word.

It struck him as odd, at first, but he molded himself around the responses Richard would give. There were plenty of them, he just had to look. Richard seemed like the kind of person who gave up trying to connect with other people. Rouven could respect that as well. He could appreciate the different responses, nonvocal as they were, that the fellow soldier produced.

When they sat around a bonfire and shared stories of their life before the war, drunk and placid, he would glance over at Richard after cracking a particular joke, and note how his shoulders shook slightly and his lips were pulled in the barest upturn of a restrained laugh. How after Frederick shared a story of how he had to deal with a kid who thought it’d be funny to leave used feminine hygiene napkins around his classroom, the man would recoil in disgust.

How, when he was briefing them on their next mission, his face would go blank, eyes glazed, body stiff.

How, at the end of the day when the blood coated their hands and their clothes clung tightly with sweat, there was a ferocity in his motions, the twitch of his facial features as he cleaned up the last of the enemy, the overindulgence of violence and his genuine excitement as he sliced another man’s throat open and felt the sanguine spray over him.

How, in the dead of night when Tiberius and Frederick were asleep, he could hear the quiet sobbing and whimpering, because he, too, was kept up by his own personal demons that couldn’t be drowned in plundered Russian alcohol.

-

In all honesty, he didn’t want to think about why he liked the other man so much. Maybe he was rebounding from a string of terrible relationships. Maybe he was lonely and desperate for a human connection. Maybe he felt pity, or longing, or a want to fix himself so much but terrified at the idea of it that he had to vicariously work through his own problems through another person. Whatever the reason, he reveled in the moments they shared alone. Chattered to fill the silence, looking to Richard with a grin after any innocuous statement. Seeking approval, or perhaps just an affirmation that he himself was alive and corporeal and able to form an actual connection with another actual person.

Whatever the reason, and there were many, he naturally gravitated towards Richard. It made him happy to be around him, to talk to him, to sit next to him during a hastily prepared dinner and goose him in the side after saying a particular joke to try and get a rise. To stand outside at night and stare off in the distance of the jungle and feel every fear crushing down on him and take solace in the breathing of the men in the tent behind him, the movement of another sleepless soldier and the presence at his side, solidarity in the surmounting feelings of self-doubt and sickening hatred. To resist the urge to reach out and hold his hand, or wrap his arms around him, or cup his cheeks and… and…. and.

**Author's Note:**

> this is taken directly from my rp blog (the-ephemeral-bluebell on tumblr if any of you wanna follow it) as a kind of filler while i'm between fics. for those of you who actually follow me and wait for content, dont worry, i'm working on it. thanks for stickin around for so long.


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